(via foresting) Like UFOs and paranormal events, the orb phenomena is an example of how we can get so hung-up debating the “realness” of something that we miss what its appearance reveals to us about the evolving nature of our collective unconscious. I include myself in this tendency towards dualistic, right/wrong, true/false distinctions—despite all the things I’ve experienced that prove otherwise, it’s still all too easy to fall back upon the conventions of language and society and think of things as either real and rational or unreal and “crazy”. As such I was sceptical when I first heard about orbs—the mysterious white, semi-transparent balls that unexpectedly appear on digital photos. The accepted photographic explanation is that the orbs are appearing because of the decreased distance between the lens and the built-in flash of new, smaller cameras, which are thereby able to pick up the light reflecting off of sub-visible particles. There are others, however, who discount this theory and believe instead that the orbs are aliens, extraterrestrial spacecraft, ghosts, or some type of elemental being. They argue that existing scientific theories fail to explain all such appearances, citing the prevalence of orbs in photographs from certain locations, such as the ECETI ranch in southern Washington state near Mt. Adams. While I found such theories interesting to read, the hype over them seemed like just another attempt of the New Age industry to cash in on what was most likely a trick of light. It wasn’t until I read Daniel Pinchbeck’s report about his experience at an orb conference in England that a new way of thinking about the phenomenon opened up to me. Daniel was less concerned with questions regarding the realness of the orbs, and more interested in what they meant sociologically. He pointed to the fact that orbs often appear in pictures in which a group of people are gathered and argued that their appearance may be projections of group consciousness being aware of itself as a group: The Orbs Conference offered an eccentric collection of testimonies, channeling, scientific research and slide shows. My favorite take on the orbs came from William Bloom, a local mystic, who claims he has telepathic chats with the spheres. The orbs told him they work like “a cloud or a flock,” and visit us to “support group consciousness.” According to the orbs, “As we touch your individual psyches you begin consciously to experience yourselves as intimately connected with all other life forms on this planet and throughout the cosmos.” A physicist who connected two cameras to take simultaneous photographs found that orbs would only appear on one or the other camera. While he took this as evidence of their quantum subtlety, it could suggest spoof rather than proof. In my talk on the orbs, I downplayed the question of the orbs’ authenticity to take a sociological approach. A postmodern phenomenon, the orbs only appeared in our world due to new technology, digital media, and social networks like Flickr, or blogs where people share orb images. As our evolving social technologies keep bringing us together in unexpected ways, Bloom’s transmission about “group consciousness” is thought provoking. Daniel analyzed what he identified as a post-modern phenomenon using post-modern analytical tools: he wasn’t searching for an external validation of its reality, but instead attempted to reveal the context through which the orbs appear. I realized that a similar approach could be taken with UFOs and other phenomena—my inquiry didn’t have to fall on the side of deciding for science OR magic—rather, it could ride the psychological boundary between them. The information about orbs comes in the form of stories—which is how all information is shared—whether it’s supposed “hard” data reported by a scientist in a respected journal or the “unfounded” mystical thoughts on the blog of a (r)evolutionary author. I’ve realized it’s not the story itself, but the manner in which it is told that is the real meat of the matter. In the case of orbs, it’s not the little white balls themselves that are my focus, but what they reveal about a new, seemingly spontaneous method of telling stories via group consciousness. This post-post modern story telling resonates with the rise of self-organizing groups that use new social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to coordinate the efforts of “the many” without the need of a leader. It is my belief that it is the awareness of our new abilities to act as organic groups that forms the basis for our next evolutionary leap as a species. The more we understand ourselves as being intricately and irreparably connected with everyone and everything, the more we will realize the true nature of reality as being nothing more than a consensual illusion—thereby doing away with questions of what is real and unreal altogether.

(via foresting)

Like UFOs and paranormal events, the orb phenomena is an example of how we can get so hung-up debating the “realness” of something that we miss what its appearance reveals to us about the evolving nature of our collective unconscious. I include myself in this tendency towards dualistic, right/wrong, true/false distinctions—despite all the things I’ve experienced that prove otherwise, it’s still all too easy to fall back upon the conventions of language and society and think of things as either real and rational or unreal and “crazy”. As such I was sceptical when I first heard about orbs—the mysterious white, semi-transparent balls that unexpectedly appear on digital photos. The accepted photographic explanation is that the orbs are appearing because of the decreased distance between the lens and the built-in flash of new, smaller cameras, which are thereby able to pick up the light reflecting off of sub-visible particles. There are others, however, who discount this theory and believe instead that the orbs are aliens, extraterrestrial spacecraft, ghosts, or some type of elemental being. They argue that existing scientific theories fail to explain all such appearances, citing the prevalence of orbs in photographs from certain locations, such as the ECETI ranch in southern Washington state near Mt. Adams.

While I found such theories interesting to read, the hype over them seemed like just another attempt of the New Age industry to cash in on what was most likely a trick of light. It wasn’t until I read Daniel Pinchbeck’s report about his experience at an orb conference in England that a new way of thinking about the phenomenon opened up to me. Daniel was less concerned with questions regarding the realness of the orbs, and more interested in what they meant sociologically. He pointed to the fact that orbs often appear in pictures in which a group of people are gathered and argued that their appearance may be projections of group consciousness being aware of itself as a group:

The Orbs Conference offered an eccentric collection of testimonies, channeling, scientific research and slide shows. My favorite take on the orbs came from William Bloom, a local mystic, who claims he has telepathic chats with the spheres. The orbs told him they work like “a cloud or a flock,” and visit us to “support group consciousness.” According to the orbs, “As we touch your individual psyches you begin consciously to experience yourselves as intimately connected with all other life forms on this planet and throughout the cosmos.” A physicist who connected two cameras to take simultaneous photographs found that orbs would only appear on one or the other camera. While he took this as evidence of their quantum subtlety, it could suggest spoof rather than proof.

In my talk on the orbs, I downplayed the question of the orbs’ authenticity to take a sociological approach. A postmodern phenomenon, the orbs only appeared in our world due to new technology, digital media, and social networks like Flickr, or blogs where people share orb images. As our evolving social technologies keep bringing us together in unexpected ways, Bloom’s transmission about “group consciousness” is thought provoking.

Daniel analyzed what he identified as a post-modern phenomenon using post-modern analytical tools: he wasn’t searching for an external validation of its reality, but instead attempted to reveal the context through which the orbs appear. I realized that a similar approach could be taken with UFOs and other phenomena—my inquiry didn’t have to fall on the side of deciding for science OR magic—rather, it could ride the psychological boundary between them. The information about orbs comes in the form of stories—which is how all information is shared—whether it’s supposed “hard” data reported by a scientist in a respected journal or the “unfounded” mystical thoughts on the blog of a (r)evolutionary author. I’ve realized it’s not the story itself, but the manner in which it is told that is the real meat of the matter. In the case of orbs, it’s not the little white balls themselves that are my focus, but what they reveal about a new, seemingly spontaneous method of telling stories via group consciousness. This post-post modern story telling resonates with the rise of self-organizing groups that use new social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to coordinate the efforts of “the many” without the need of a leader.

It is my belief that it is the awareness of our new abilities to act as organic groups that forms the basis for our next evolutionary leap as a species. The more we understand ourselves as being intricately and irreparably connected with everyone and everything, the more we will realize the true nature of reality as being nothing more than a consensual illusion—thereby doing away with questions of what is real and unreal altogether.